Condoleezza Rice’s Memoir “Extraordinary, Ordinary People”

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From The New York Times by DWIGHT GARNER

Condoleezza Rice’s memoir, “Extraordinary, Ordinary People,” ends where most readers would probably rather it began: with the 2000 election, the recount in Florida and the Supreme Court ruling that put George W. Bush in the White House.

There’s nothing about the toxic events on the near horizon — 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rippling policy misadventures that reverberated from each — events in which the author played crucial and controversial roles. That’s all for later and perhaps more invigorating books. (Ms. Rice is scheduled to deliver a policy memoir in 2012.)

“Extraordinary, Ordinary People” is instead an origins story, a minor-key memoir mostly about Ms. Rice’s upbringing in Birmingham, Ala., during the early years of the civil rights movement. Her parents, both teachers, were striving and selfless members of that city’s black bourgeoisie. They sacrificed nearly everything so that their talented only child could become a sleek, heat-seeking, success-driven missile.